In the manufacture of cigarettes by high speed cigarette making machines, each cigarette is examined by automatic inspection devices to ensure that it meets certain quality standards. Cigarettes not meeting these quality standards are ejected from the production line and the valuable tobacco contained therein is normally recovered for recycling. A number of devices have been described in the prior art for reclaiming tobacco from cigarettes including those which subject the cigarette to mechanical forces which disrupt the cigarette paper to release the tobacco and those which direct a jet of air into the intact cigarette to force the tobacco from the paper tube surrounding the tobacco. Both the mechanical and the pneumatic type devices have their advantages and disadvantages and the type of device selected for use will depend on various factors including the number of rejected cigarettes generated by the manufacturing operation, the nature of the defects associated with the rejected cigarettes and the manner in which the reclaimed tobacco is to be recycled.
Tobacco reclaiming apparatus of the penumatic type is disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,757,799 and 4,117,852. The apparatus in both patents employs pressurized air to eject the tobacco from cigarettes as the cigarettes are continuously moved past the air treating station. The sealing arrangement between the conduit supplying the pressurized air and the end of the cigarette against which the air is directed is somewhat tenuous. Thus, the apparatus of U.S. Pat. No. 3,757,799 includes a tobacco compressing step which facilitates ejection of the tobacco by the pressurized air subsequently applied. The apparatus of U.S. Pat. No. 4,117,852 utilizes a pneumatic positioning device which adjusts the position of each cigarette deposited on a fluted, rotary drum to ensure that the end of the cigarette will move into abutting relationship with the conduit supplying the pressurized air. Neither of these arrangements is entirely satisfactory, however, because they do not provide a consistent seal between the pressurized air conduit and the ends of the cigarettes.